Batmobile

"This isn't exactly a secret in the Roman Empire, but hearing it from someone else still makes me a little uncomfortable."

"If it makes you uncomfortable, solve the problem. Running away won't help. I'll take a look around the port. I'll leave digging into those people's backgrounds to you~"

"Huh? I haven't even agre-"

"You will."

Qin Wei pushed open the car door and glanced back to wink at Royce.

Royce took fierce drags on his cigarette, rubbing his right elbow. His face was like a movie screen, its expressions constantly shifting beneath the beam of a projector called memory.

The cigarette burned down to the end.

He kicked the door open and flung the cigarette butt hard onto the ground, where its sparks flared and died.

Beside the box truck, six or seven masked men were laboriously loading crates of goods. Their clothes were faded and covered in large patches of grime, and some had toes poking through their shoes. They all had one thing in common: a foul stench. Standing beside them was like digging a rotten rat out of sewer sludge.

As a seasoned veteran of the Lower District, Royce recognized them at a glance.

The Beggar Gang, a faction at the very bottom of the Lower District, was also Gotham's cheapest source of labor. You didn't even have to pay them to work; a few slices of bread would do. In return, these beggars tended to have sticky fingers and couldn't land legitimate jobs.

That was why the work they took on was usually shady. Once the job was done, they scattered. Even if they left traces everywhere, the police couldn't possibly pick the suspects out of Gotham's tens of thousands of beggars.

Royce smoothed his hair, took the cigarettes out of his pocket, and walked toward two beggars slacking off in the shadow of a shipping container.

"Lovely weather today. It's actually not raining, is it?"

He offered the cigarettes before he even finished his greeting. Royce knew all too well how to get friendly with people from the Lower District.

But the two beggars weren't fools either. Who would greet them for no reason? They exchanged a glance, accepted the cigarettes, and said nothing more.

Royce had expected as much. He waved the lighter in his hand.

"My name is Harvey Dent. I'm the newly appointed prosecutor. Two bodies were found by the Riverbank a few days ago. Beggars, wearing masks just like yours. Do you have any leads for me?"

Using beggars and then killing them to silence them wasn't unheard of. The beggars also knew perfectly well that anyone hiring them was probably doing something shady, and taking part could cost them their lives. But they needed to eat too. Hunger could drive a person to breaking point.

Rather than directly warning them how dangerous this job was, Royce cleverly used Harvey Dent's identity to reveal a few details.

It was late at night, and the glaring light from the tower crane washed over him. Apart from his conspicuous blond hair, his features were impossible to make out. That was more than enough to pass himself off as Harvey Dent.

Besides, had these beggars ever actually seen Harvey?

"I don't know!"

The beggar snatched the lighter from Royce's hand. His hand shook as he lit his cigarette.

The other beggar reacted even more dramatically, pulling off his mask and bending low, apparently planning to slip around the back of the container and escape.

"I suspect this shipment you're moving is connected to those deaths, so I'd like to infiltrate the operation... How about this? Leave your clothes and everything else behind." Royce pulled a few bills from his wallet.

The two beggars had already been thinking of backing out. Now they could even get paid for it. What reason did they have to refuse? They finished their cigarettes, then stripped off their clothes, thanking him profusely.

Just like that, Royce easily obtained his ticket into the crew of laborers.

Meanwhile, Qin Wei wandered aimlessly and happened to see a tower crane lowering a large, dust-covered shipping container onto a forklift.

But the container was too heavy. Even though the forklift was the largest model available, the instant the crane released its hook, it tipped up, and one corner of the container slammed into the ground.

Standing nearby, Qin Wei felt the ground tremble.

But the accident didn't end there.

With its rear wheels hanging in the air, the forklift reversed at full power, trying to pull its two bent forks out from beneath the container. The enormous container rocked, then flipped upside down with a crash. The heavy object inside tore through its sheet-metal walls and came hurtling up to Qin Wei.

It was a car.

Its wheels were the most eye-catching part: four enormous tires like those of a heavy truck, each probably half a meter wide. Its exposed front suspension was as thick as an anchor chain, radiating a rugged industrial aesthetic.

Its chassis sat low, but calling it a sports car on that basis would have been far too hasty. After all, the entire vehicle was covered in thick, gray-black metal plates, a luxury even military armored vehicles didn't enjoy.

If he had to compare it to something, its exaggerated, hard-edged design was closer to the toy four-wheel-drive cars Qin Wei had played with as a child. But clad in all that steel armor, it looked much more like a tank.

One word sprang into Qin Wei's mind-Batmobile!

Every boy had a Batmobile hidden in his heart. It might look like the neatly styled Rolls-Royce from the early detective comics, the bullet-shaped car from Keaton's films, or even Bale's hefty, armored, bat-beetle-like Tumbler.

But one glance was all Qin Wei needed to decide that the car before him was his ideal Batmobile. The reason was simple: admiring something on a screen or a page could never compare to the impact of seeing it up close.

His breathing quickened, and he eagerly reached out to touch it.

Seeing someone about to touch the goods, the forklift operator hurriedly jumped down and shoved Qin Wei away.

"Get lost! Can you even afford this thing? Keep your hands off!" The man spread his arms, blocking Qin Wei from the car, and frowned as he looked him up and down in his ragged clothes. "Where did this trash picker crawl out from? If you don't beat it, I'll..."

Ah, so this tired old cliché had finally happened.

Qin Wei scratched his head, looking troubled.

He was struggling to decide how to put the man in his place with enough flair to feel fresh rather than forced. Should he slap him across the face with a wad of cash, or ram him flying with a Ferrari?

Fortunately, Victor's arrival solved his problem.

Apparently, he had been creepily watching Qin Wei for quite some time. The moment he saw him in trouble, he sprang out of a corner, charged over with his feet splayed outward, and sent the oblivious fool flying with a kick.

"They've never seen such... distinctive attire as yours. Please don't be angry! And if you are, please direct your anger at me!"

Victor bowed deeply, his face full of anguish. The next second, however, his eyebrows lifted, and he seamlessly switched to a fawning expression as he launched into an endless introduction to the car.

"The pride of Wayne Enterprises' technology research and development department, the Multi-Terrain Bulletproof Armored Vehicle. Two seats. Just look at those thick steel plates! Most armor-piercing rounds can't even leave a mark...

"Twelve hundred horsepower, and it even comes with a Remote Control System. There's no better treasure for turning heads! Since you're an old acquaintance of Mr. Falcone, I'll let you have it for the bargain price of fifty million dollars!"

Qin Wei was determined to get the car, but the price was a complete rip-off. If he bought it, he wouldn't have enough money left for his subsequent activities.

"Is this really the latest model?"

Qin Wei glanced at the dusty container, then ran a finger over the car's body, wiping off a layer of dust.

"Uh... a new model from within the last five years. The latest model, for short."

Victor gave him an awkward, apologetic smile. He realized Qin Wei wasn't quite so easy to fool.

Wayne Enterprises' advanced technology research and development department had disbanded five years earlier. Quite a few novel inventions had eventually found their way into his hands, and this car was one of them.

The car had been expensive to build, so Victor had preferred to let it gather dust in a warehouse for five years rather than sell it cheaply. The truth, however, was that its uses were far too limited.

Weighing over ten tons, it did tremendous damage to road surfaces, which meant it couldn't be taken out for a casual drive like an ordinary sports car. Then there was its appearance. Retro styling was all the rage in Gotham, and almost no one appreciated its rugged, exaggerated design.

Victor had already resigned himself to never selling it. He had planned to send it to a dismantling plant and see whether its parts could be sold separately.

Recovering a little of his investment and stemming his losses would still be better than letting it gather dust in a warehouse.

Now that he had finally found someone who appreciated it, Victor knew that unless he seized this one chance, the car would be stuck in his hands forever.

"Then how much would you be willing to pay?" he asked.

Those were almost the most humble words a merchant could utter. The message behind them was perfectly clear: as long as you didn't make him lose too much, he would sell it to you.